Finally! After what seems like months of headaches, expenditures and mixups, Fresh Abundance! Division is open.
It’s really not difficult to find. 2015 N. Division. Just North of Indiana and across the street from Mountain Gear.
Man, has this place changed. It looks so much different and better it’s simply amazing.
BrightSpirit has some pretty big plans for this place, if you’re part of the “inner circle” stop by, ask for me (it’s pronounced Jack) and I’ll give you a behind the scenes tour.
I’ve gotta cut this post short, pesky customers keep coming in.
Ahh, how nice it was to escape the madness of the Division Store opening and get away from the big city and out to the wilderness where the mosquitoes will carry you away and there’s always the fear of rogue beaver.
We drove just about 6 hours to North of Whitefish Montana and stayed at the family cabin of Laura and Tim’s.
Not too rural, but rural enough
It was outstandingly beautiful. We went canoeing…
My wonderful wife tolerated my obsession with water and went out with me
Later in the trip Tim, Laura and Steve came upstream in their canoe and violated one of the supreme laws of river canoeing, they went sideways and it was all over.
The price for violating a river canoeing law
Luckily the “river” is actually a creek, so everyone was a-ok.
Thumbs up if you’re ok
Over all a great weekend. Then we drove home and went to work at Division.
I’ve mentioned before how much and what I like to eat. Basically a lot and mostly fruit and veggies. I tend to graze throughout the day. Hey, there’s gotta be some sort of bennie of being a grocery store owner.
But, I’m good for the mostly fruit and veggie thing unless some comes along and offers something else. You see, I can resist almost anything but temptation.
Jacque wouldn’t do so well here (or he would, depends on how you look at it)
If I’m off the bike because I rode way too far over the past couple of days and need to give my bod a break and someone offers a bike ride I’m strapping on the shoes am off.
So here I am working away at the Divsion store grazing on some lettuce, peppers and whatever I can put my little hands on the other day when Steve approachs me and says, “It’s Whopper Wednesday, want to go to BK?”. I was there baby, one toxic burger and fries for me. A couple of hours later it didn’t sit too well, but hey, I guess I paid for taking a trip to, “Temptation Island”.
I’m off to Whitefish Montana for the 4th weekend returning Sunday morning.
One Division update left that is. I’m writing this on Thursday evening after working 2 12-hour days and missing yesterdays update.
Between “normal” day to day operations (in which we’re short staffed) we’ve been touching up paint trim, patching holes in walls and working with plumbing inspectors. In addition, today I had to do the Wednesday deliveries while Heather did Thursdays because Thursday is actually FAFriday. !? What I’m getting at is that FA is closed on Friday so Thursday deliveries went out today along with regular Wednesday ones and Friday deliveries will go out tomorrow (Thursday).
The big question…are we still going to open on Monday. Heck yea! Like I said before, we’ll just work around ya’ll.
Honk at me if you see me outside on Thursday as I pressure wash the outside of the building. After that’s done I’m going to clean the inside of the windows then BS and I are off to Whitefish Montana for the 4th weekend returning Sunday morn to freak out a bit over the opening.
So this’ll be the last post till Sunday evening. At that time I’ll put up some before and after pics and will await your arrive on Monday.
Here’s the hot, sweaty and dirty update for today.
Not as much painting, more plumbing and lot’s o cleaning.
So, it’s currently 5:50 pm and I’m literally trapped here at the Division Store. I’m too sweaty to sit in the Adminstrator’s air conditioned office to surf youtube videos, it’s too dang hot in the break-room so I’m sitting at the cash register computer eating a mostly melted chocolate bar. I have my bike here to ride home, but forgot my shoes. And I can’t ride the bike without the special shoes. I kinda feel like Sampson when he had his hair cut off.
Anyhoo, today the Troops hosed off the floor, Steve and Peecheng did some painting and Steve and I did some plumbing. We have part 1 of the 2 part plumbing inspection tomorrow.
Pictured here will be a floor sink for the espresso stand
On Tuesday I’ll be setting the floor sinks and self setup begins. More pics then.
Man, there is a lot of wall space in that building. I never realized how much till we started painting.
I almost forgot to paint these pillars
Anna’s Husband Luke is working HARD on getting the plumbing installed. We had a 2″ line brought in. It will feed the kitchen and all the rest of our needs.
Size does matter. A 2″ line will bring in a lot of water
Can you guess what I’m going to announce? (No, it isn’t my upcoming debut as a dancer) It’s the opening of the Division store.
Write it on your calendar and tattoo it on your forehead, Beginning Monday July 7th at 10am you can come to the Division store to shop and/or pick up your order. Located at 2015 North Division (one block North of Indiana across from Mountain Gear) we will be open 7-days per week from 10am till 7pm. This will be a “soft opening”, so other than a bit of horn blatting and getting the fireworks ready there wont’ be much fanfare. We’ve still a bit of work to do but really want to get this place open. But *please* wait till Monday the 7th to come by. The shelving isn’t up yet and there’s still a bit of painting, plumbing and concrete work to do. For more information check my blog at http://www.freshabundance.com/freshblog From now on, I’ll be making *daily* updates so you can see what’s going on.
Wow! After an announcement like that what can I follow up with that’ll keep ya’ll interested?
How about this:
Fresh, LOCAL chickens on sale at $2.99 per pound and Fresh Organic Corn on the Cob at 75 cents each. (Oh, the corn won’t be available till Tuesday.)
Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea why this is such good Weekly News this week? It’s because I’m composing it from The Scoop! The infusion of ice cream on top of a rich triple mocha and the company of my friends and neighbors is really inspiring.
I actually wrote The News on Friday and then did some outstanding riding. On Saturday we hit the road for a farm run to pick up raw milk and do some camping in the mountains North of Winthrop.
We ended up on a forest service road where we did a 2 mile hike with 960 foot elevation gain to some great waterfalls.
Not quite wide enough to hold hands with your sweetie
Here are some great pics of the falls we finally made it to. It was worth the climb.
BrightSpirit is even more beautiful when she faces the camera
Steve at the falls
Peecheng
Nice hike with beautiful vistas. On Sunday morning we cooked over the trusty camp stove, picked up the milk and headed home.
Ahh, but what since? Paint, and work on the Division Store. In fact, you can say you heard it here first.
It’s official. The opening date of the Division store will be July 7th. You’ll be able to to some shopping as well as pick up your boxes. Exciting? You’re dang tootin! We’ve lost our sanity and gone broke on this project, so it’d better be exciting.
Here’s a picture of the South wall painting progression. (click for full sized version)
Ugly to beautiful
Today I’ll be installing lighting. More pics to follow.
Last week I mentioned Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched and a person replied asking her husbands name. My response? Lenny. (I may have been wrong)
I’m going to mix it up this week and give you the Division Update first.
Painting is almost done. Wish I could say more, like announce a firm opening or maybe even a tentative opening. But we can’t, there’s still too much up in the air. There’s some pictures of the painting (what great colors) and more on the blog.
For four years now I’ve been blathering on and on about food. Preparation, safety, what’s hot and what’s not. Mostly I’ve been pumping what Fresh Abundance! has available or LOCAL items. Here’s an opportunity to hear a person talk in person about a foodstuff that’s oft misunderstood and frequently scares people, mushrooms.
The Spokane Mushroom Club is presenting Tales of Tibet’s Fungal Miracle from Daniel Winkler. The talk will begin at 7 pm on Monday the 30th at the San Souci West Recreation Center 3231 W. Boone Ave. (go west on Boone and It’ll drop you right into the San Souci). The presentation is free. Contact Peecheng (Peach-ing) at Chenjp1 at yahoo.com for more information. Heck if for no other reason, come on by and see me. I don’t even like mushrooms but the information on the Club’s website makes the talk sound interesting. I promise not to talk about *my* fungal issues.
Special of the week: Pork steaks at $6.27 per pound (down from $8.27).
That’s it for this week. It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. I’m off to The Scoop for some coffee, a bike ride, visit with Rick, home to clean and then tomorrow a farm run and camping with BrightSpirit. Can it get much better?
Till later,
Jacque - Out
Phew, just caught this before it left. Hey! Don’t forget that the delivery and store schedule will be different for the 4th of July week. Check out the schedule at Here. Jacque - Out (again, as he closes the rig’s back door and gives it a slap to send it on the way to deliver this weeks News)
